God's Banquet: Food in Classical Arabic Literature

Rating:
Summary: Innovative and illuminating
Review: This innovative book illuminates both culinary and literary history. Van Gelder surveys the ways food appears in classical Arabic literature, including pre-Islamic poetry, the Qur'an, Islamic poetry and tales, the Thousand and One Nights, and popular genres such as the adab anthologies and satires. To show how food both forms and reveals aspects of Arab culture, he considers ban-quets and the prestige of prodigal hospitality; abstinence and piety versus satiety and sin; smorgasbords and rich literary diction; and food and parody. Focusing more on dishes than ingredients, the author is concerned with how food is depicted, as well as how literary texts are shaped by the theme of food. His command of the sources is magisterial, and he has a gift for unexpected conjunctions and deft phrasing that illuminate both literature and culture.